I had a question concerning rule G10 and rule SG8 .
Rule SG8 e states:
Match Load Rings may only be introduced during the Autonomous Period or the Driver Controlled Period
This implies that rings can be introduced during the autonomous period.
Rule G10 States however:
During the Autonomous Period, Drive Team Members are not permitted to interact with the Robots in any way, directly or indirectly. This could include, but is not limited to…
• Triggering sensors (including the Vision Sensor) in any way, even without touching them.
I assume that you would still be allowed to place rings because of G3, but would you be allowed to sense where the match load rings are? For example, could I place a match load, and use the vison sensor to align my robot with the ring. Or could I use a color sensor to sense for the purple color to make sure I picked up the ring?
I can’t provide any official answer, but based on the way I interpreted this rule, I would assume that would be okay. You aren’t the one triggering the sensor; it’s just sensing the ring - and the robot reaction/sensor position should make that pretty obvious if that is the case. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that interpretation may vary based on the ref.
Ooooh! Interesting! You would be indirectly activating the Vision Sensor by placing a ring. So would G10 supersede SG8?
Can you place a ring such that the Vision Sensor can see it?
Another question to ask is, on what level can your ring placement influence your autonomous period? For instance, could you have a vision sensor use the placement of a ring to get feedback about something? Is it useless to score rings on the alliance mogo because your alliance partner didn’t and you won’t get the WP anyway? Did your opponent not pick up a neutral goal, so that should be your priority to go and get?
Another thing I realized is that rule SG10 might apply:
Use Scoring Objects to play the game. Scoring Objects may not be used to accomplish
actions that would be otherwise illegal if they were attempted by Robot mechanisms (e.g., Interfering with an opponent’s Autonomous routine per .)
The intent of this rule is to prohibit teams from using game objects as “gloves” to loophole any rule that states “a Robot may not [do some action]”. This rule is not intended to be taken in its most extreme literal interpretation, where any interaction between a Scoring Object and a Robot needs to be scrutinized with the same intensity as if it were a Robot.
It might be ok to sense that you grabbed a ring, but it might not be ok to use rings to send “messages” to the robot.
Good point! But as SG10 is currently written, it doesn’t do anything in this situation (at least in my opinion).
SG10:
Use Scoring Objects to play the game. Scoring Objects may not be used to accomplish
actions that would be otherwise illegal if they were attempted by Robot mechanisms (e.g., Interfering with an opponent’s Autonomous routine per SG4.)
The intent of this rule is to prohibit teams from using game objects as “gloves” to loopholeany rule that states “a Robot may not [do some action]”. This rule is not intended to be taken in its most extreme literal interpretation, where any interaction between a Scoring Object and a Robot needs to be scrutinized with the same intensity as if it were a Robot.
G10:
Autonomous means “no humans”. During the Autonomous Period, Drive Team Members are not permitted to interact with the Robots in any way, directly or indirectly
Emphasis mine. SG10 explicitly states actions that would be illegal if done by a robot mechanism. G10 makes it abundantly clear that it is referring to Drive Team Members and that violating G10 is an action done by them, not robots.
But definitely a rule to think about in connection with this situation, despite the fact that it currently has no bearing on it.
As a ref, I’d apply common sense. Since SG8 clearly states Rings can be introduced during Auton, and since a Vision Sensor could be used to improve the Robot’s accuracy in manipulating the Rings, that interaction is OK since the Drive Team Member releases the Ring onto the field.
The intent of the rule seems to be along the lines of preventing a Drive Team Member using the Ring, in hand, in front of the Vision Sensor to guide the Robot thru an objective.
Using the presence or absence of a Match Load Ring on the field to trigger 2 different auton behaviors (e.g. “Pick up Ring if detected” versus “Get second Goal if no Ring detected”) would seem to be borderline OK in my book, as there’s no “active, human” guidance of the robot with the object. That said, the human is likely making the decision of placing the Ring or not based on the human’s observation of the other robots, which brings it to borderline.
Not as a ref anymore, and regardless of the legality, I would definitely tip my hat to a team able to pull something like that off. I would hope the GDC would be open to allowing this sort of creativity.
So a ring needs to be scored on each alliance mobile goal to get the win point.
The scenario I was referring to would be if your alliance partner tried to score a ring on the alliance mobile goal on their side of the field. They failed to do so. In this scenario, scoring rings on the alliance mobile goal would only increase your point score. Your partner has already failed to put a ring in the goal, which would be necessary to gain the WP. In this case, it might be more beneficial to do a different action, trying to get another neutral mogo perhaps.
It is not useless to put rings on an alliance mogo. It can lead to more points and other advantages. I was referring to a specific scenario where the scoring of rings would not help with the main motive for scoring them, which would be to gain the AWP.
This would certainly be an interesting scenario. If your robot detected this (I don’t think the Vision Sensor would be able to at a reasonable distance), it could have a routine that would attempt to recover the AWP. If it detected your partner succeeded, it could go after neutral mogos.
With the VEX AI competition format allowing robot-to-robot communication during the fully autonomous match, it would be interesting to see if RECF would consider allowing this for VRC, so that partner robots could attempt to report their success/failure/objective to their partner during auton.
